More recently, work continues on the new storage area on the west side of the garage.  Until the retaining wall went in, the ground to the west of the house was virtually unusable, especially in winter when ice would render the sloping hillside too treacherous to attempt a crossing.  Our previous blog entry shows how tall the retaining wall had to be to level out the worst stretch of the hillside.

The work on the west side was fairly straightforward. Build the retaining wall. Fill in behind the retaining wall.  Put in pier blocks.  Assemble roof supports.  Attach the roof.  When I added lights and an electrical outlet in the new covered area I duplicated the effort in the shed we constructed last summer, so now we’ll be able to see what we're doing in both areas in the dead of winter.

And what will become of the new storage area?  For one thing, it would seem to be a good place to put the radial arm saw, which I never use because it’s too much of a hassle to haul it out of the garage (and too messy to run in the garage).  There are a number of other things that we’d like to store there too, things that need to be out of the rain (and snow) but otherwise don’t need a heated space, like garden tools and yard equipment.  And then of course there is the prospect of storing another couple of cords (or more) of firewood, but we’ll have to deal with that as wood becomes available.

Speaking of available wood, we may be coming across a large quantity of it soon enough.  Several of our trees (about a dozen) are showing evidence of a spruce beetle infestation and may already be dying.  After giving the matter some thought we’ve decided to let the infestation run its course, which means that we’ll be losing some trees, gaining some daylight, and filling both woodsheds for the next few years.  I’m mostly okay with losing some of the trees, because we have plenty of them, and since the older trees are in the most jeopardy their loss would enhance the growth of the younger trees, just like nature intended.  The only thing I don’t look forward to is removing the stumps: my experience has been that even the small tree stumps are really difficult to dislodge from the ground, as I was reminded while taking out the one old stump (which should have rotted out but didn’t) that resided in the path of the new retaining wall.

Becky’s in Kindergarten five days a week and loving it.  Michael is in preschool two mornings a week, and he loves it too.  So far, I have been too occupied to consider what the extra “free” time means to me.